The Comp I is a recently discovered fungicidal molecule. The patent application WO2012084812 by Venturini, Isabella et al, first described the Comp I as a fungicide for agricultural use and the synthesis thereof. Structurally, the Comp I is an amide compound and thus can be easily obtained by the routine processes for making those amide compounds. For example, the Comp I can be obtained by condensing the Comp II and a corresponding pyrazole carboxylic acid or pyrazole carboxylic acid halide which provides the corresponding indane portion of the resultant Comp I. The synthesis route is showed as follows:

The Comp I is a chiral molecule with a chiral central on the 3′-carbon of the indane ring, which makes the Comp I have two enantiomer forms, namely R and S enantiomers. Further investigation found that the R enantiomer is the active component contributing to the fungicidal activity, while the S enantiomer shows no or less fungicidal activity.
Thus, there is a desire to synthesize in high yield the active component of R enantiomer without the formation of the unwanted inactive S enantiomer. One currently used approach to achieve this goal is using the R enantiomer of Comp II instead of the racemic form thereof as the starting material to react with the corresponding indane derivative to specifically yield the desired R enantiomer. With this approach, the R enantiomer of Comp II is useful while the S enantiomer is useless and wasted.
There is still a strong need to be met where the inactive S enantiomer can be recycled and the active R enantiomer can be synthesized in high yield.